Accessibility Testing: How Good is Your Application?

SUMMARY:

Discover the importance of accessibility testing in creating inclusive applications that reach a wider audience, improve SEO, and meet essential compliance standards like WCAG and ADA.

What is Accessibility Testing?

Accessibility testing is testing applications to verify whether they are accessible and usable by all people, including people with disabilities. There are around 15% of the world population who have some form of disability (visual, auditory, speech, physical, language, cognitive, etc). This means every organization needs to perform accessibility testing of all applications to improve reach, even for people with cognitive, motor, visual, or hearing impairments to some extent.

What to Test?

There are many aspects that have to be tested as a part of accessibility testing. Some of them are keyboard navigation, color contrast, screen reader support, etc. One should also ensure that the application is compliant with standards of accessibility such as W3C’s WCAG 1.0/WCAG 2.0, BITV 1.0, Section 508 & Stanca Act, ADA, etc., out of which Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Section 508, and ADA (American Disabilities Act) are most commonly used for checking website compliance. Although all aim to make the information available to people with disabilities, each one is different. For instance, WCAG is the ISO standard set of guidelines for website accessibility, 508 is for compliance with federal law, and ADA is for civil rights law. 

The aim of WCAG 2.0 is to make the application easily accessible for users with disabilities, increase the company’s market share by attracting a wider audience, and make the application available to users irrespective of low bandwidth and across regions. WCAG is organized on four principles, and the content must be POUR – Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. These standards help the application be more accessible and successful in the market. 

Manual and Automation Testing

Accessibility testing can be done by both manual and automation testing. Extensive testing of individual pages and functionalities needs to be performed. However, there are a few aspects that require manual intervention. 

Keyboard-based Accessibility: This can be performed using automated tests. The key is to ensure all the components of the screen can be reached through keyboard strokes, including complex menus, sliders, dialogs, tab panels, etc. 

Screen Readers: There are tools available in the market to perform screen-reading testing. These tools access the DOM (Document Object Model), and browser APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to get the information and announce the information that is present on the screen. Tools like ChromeVox, NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver help perform effective screen-reading accessibility testing in appropriate browsers. 

High Contrast Mode: Low vision users have sensitivity to light; hence, high contrast mode is applied to effectively use the computer. When high contrast mode is turned on, Windows changes the foreground and background colors, making all backgrounds black and all foreground text white, yellow, or another brighter color of the user’s choice. There are tools like Color Contrast Analyzer and Total Validator that can be used for performing this testing as well. There are instances where manual testing plays a crucial role; for instance, if a page has a dark background, say blue, and an input field is present with a white background. Now, when high contrast mode is turned on in Windows, the background of the page and the input field by default change to black. This makes the input field invisible as there is no border after the high contrast is turned on.

Media Accessibility: Media accessibility benefits people with low vision, people with hearing problems, and users with cognitive disabilities. To test media accessibility, testers ensure that the media in the application under test (AUT) has options for captions, transcripts, and options to turn them on and off.

Accessibility Compliance Check: Tools like DYNO Mapper, Accessibility Checker, AChecker, etc help to perform compliance checks against various guidelines like WCAG, W3C, Section 508, etc. AChecker is an open-source software.

Benefits of Accessibility Testing

Accessibility testing has various benefits, some of which are

1. Reaching a wider audience: It ensures that the application is accessible to all people, even those with disabilities.
2. Improves SEO: Making the application accessible has a positive impact on improving SEO and sales. Applications with easier navigation and cleaner interfaces help in improving the bounce rate.
3. Enhances brand image: By ensuring that the application is accessible to all users, an organization is generating positive PR as it has shown the need and importance for accommodating people with disabilities. 

Conclusion

Accessibility testing should be made part of the regular software testing process as the industry moves towards improving customer experience. The methodologies to perform accessibility testing may vary based on organization and application requirements. However, the focus on making the applications accessible should never be missed. 

If you are looking for any testing-related solutions, XTIVIA’s Testing Center of Excellence is available to help you out with your projects.